Industrial facilities use communication networks to transmit and receive information and data. The industrial facilities can include various industries and applications such as process or industrial manufacturing, building automation, substation automation, and automatic meter reading. The communication networks can use a variety of communication network protocols. Several protocols have been developed for power system automation.
Substations in high and medium-voltage power networks include primary devices such as electrical cables, lines, bus bars, switches, power transformers and instrument transformers, which are generally arranged in switch yards and/or bays. These primary devices are operated in an automated way via a Substation Automation (SA) system. The SA system includes secondary devices, so-called Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED), which are responsible for protection, control and monitoring of the primary devices. The IEDs may be assigned to hierarchical levels, for example, the station level, the bay level, and the process level, the latter being separated from the bay level by a so-called process interface.
One such international communication network protocol, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850, is a standard for the design of electrical substation automation for a power system having a controller, and a plurality of IEDs that monitor primary devices. IEC 61850 is a part of the IEC Technical Committee reference architecture for electric power systems. The communication protocol between the IEDs and the controller can run over TCP/IP networks or substation LANs using high speed switched Ethernet.
One problem that occurs when using a communication protocol such as IEC 61850 is that there can be multiple subscribers to a single set of data. The single set of data is configured to include all the data that any subscriber might need, even if not all subscribers require or can use all of the data contained in the single data set. Further, the definition of the single set of data is subject to change over time.
When an industrial control system is configured to use or consume data for a single set of data, the design and engineering activities are frequently completed prior to installation at an industrial site. After the engineering activities have been completed for the industrial control system, it is disadvantageous and costly to modify the industrial control system at the time of site installation. Unfortunately, because the single set of data may require changes unrelated to the function of the control system, the control system may be required to be redesigned or modified on order to properly function.